The best drivers ever...

[CTG]

After calming down: Argammon!!! I never said you are worse and never compared you to my performance. I admit that you can beat me in most cases. I just don't like people rating themselves higher than any other people think about him (overestimation). See my own list: 4th Argammon, 10th me. Isn't it enough? Numbers tell everything about my opinion. But the thing that you never showed a constant & long good performance in any seasons is the main reason of your "bad" ranking. An undisputed champion like Gutix, Rotoi or BJ are above this - I guess for all of us. Do you want people think that you are the best? Try to win ZSC 2008 with a large gap and every pipsqueak will know, that you were right.

[CTG]

About head to head matches: I didn't calculate yours as Akoss and me calculated only our head to head ratios versus certain opponents.

[Argammon]

First of all. Everyone is entitled to have his own opinion or "list".
Thus I am not angry if I am "only" on 4th place on some of them. But in the same way you should accept my opinion as an opinion and not brandmark me as an arrogant prick.
Do you only want me to say oooooooh I am 9th so people think I am a humble and nice person?

Another side of the dice is the following. Of course winning a whole championship creates a far bigger mark in people's memories than just racing some strong races. Looking at it from that angle I can really be happy to be rated ~4th as I am right there with, yes!, champions!

Answering Krys: It's not true that I duck cars I am bad with. I just don't drive when I am either bored or annoyed with the track/car/competition/some people. I am not very good with the melange yet competed few times with it. Also had some Jaguar races I lost. My race selection is very close to randomness so I don't think that argument is to valid. I did not pick out my fav cars. Rather I started "randomly" at some point and did "some" races in most cases!

@BJ: IMO the person starting a flame has the main responsibility. And I am -sometimes- reading achieved topics which I missed while being away. And if there is, quite often, someone badmouthing me while I am inactive, then I am not to amused about it...

Finally, my take is that I was always underestimated and to compensate for that I was overestimating myself. It's a bit like strategic voting. If I think BJ was overestimated I tend to rank him a tad lower than he is to compensate for the bias which's already part of the old votes  .

[Argammon]

Maybe it would even be more interesting and less insultive to do this top lists for each single car...

[CTG]

But I still can't get why Dottore and Mark are higher than me.

[Argammon]

Let's just say it's likely that none of the top 10 lists so far is perfect. And since that also applies to mine...

[CTG]

Dottore

- always beated him in ZakStunts
- he has no ZSC victories
- check USC overall scoreboards - manager is removed or made some irrealistic bad race (with a very strong online help replay, not included in the scoreboard), that's why he's a two times champion (don't want to hurt Doc, but that's the truth)
- no good results in any other competitions

Mark L. Rivers

- better than me: with Indy
- before 2007: I had significantly better results than him
- 2007: check ZSC season results

Both of them are great pipsqueaks but I don't think they showed more then I did in the past. I wish them a successful career and I also hope they will prove that they can be a lot better than me. But at the moment they aren't yet.

[CTG]

It seems you only wanted to make me nervous with putting them ahead. Well-done!

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

First of all, the parts of Stunts driving skills.

It is most about the types of cars. I would select 3 different categories:
-the Indy
-IMSA and Melange
-slow cars (Audi and Lancia is a bit like the previous group - especially Lancia: Audi slows in corners like the real slow cars, but less skidable)

More parts of driving skills:
-ISA/IRC rules driving (counted in my eyes, because there was a big competition in it)
-no replay handling driving

It's a pity that there are much more slow cars in the game. Thus ZakStunts shows the masters of the slow cars more than it should. That is one of the main reasons of the fact that we should also include the other major competitions as well.

Let's sum up the major competitions.

ZakStunts - the most popular. All of the cars are included, so mostly a slow car competition.

ISA/IRC - probably the hardest ever, and maybe the strongest, too. That's where uncrowned Indy king Rotoi really prevailed, and none of the other top drivers could really battle with him. Only Indy is included.

Unskilled - a fair mixture of fast and slow cars (like ZakStunts 2003 B competition), but many top drivers are missing or not taking it seriously enough (like ZakStunts 2003 B competition). Later the level of this competetion rose a bit.

Kalpen - I think the first contesttrack in 2003 was the most quality race ever. Even some of the old big guns returned and we showed to them that our generation is the strongest. Everybody wanted to show his strength on a return of a legendary competition. This month I also drove the most on this track. The other races were of a poorer quality, but still decent. Only Indy is included.

The strength of the most permanent championship (ZakStunts) changed from year to year, like this: 2001>>2002>>2003<2004<2005<<2006<<<2007. Drivers who were relatively in background could play a more serious role in the championship in the latter years, because some top drivers disappeared/retired, the remaining ones didn't take the competition as seriously as earlier. When reigning king Roy found a girlfriend, BJ could appear from his shade and take everything that year. 2003 started with a great BJ-Rotoi battle, but both of us were lack of motivation so Alain could be crowned as champion in the end. That meant one more demotivated driver to 2004. Gutix, powered by motivation of newbies, capitalized on this and win the battle, without any serious effort from earlier top drivers. Ayrton and Renato Biker did the same later, and when all of the old top drivers had win a championship and/or retired and lost motivation, CTG could win final title (who were relatively in background during the golden years - means no real chance of winning the title - even with manual transmission).

Other factors which influenced the changing of forces: advanced RH in 2002. Alain and Mingva discovered this method (and allegedly Roy used it, too - he was over us by much until we didn't know advRH), later it was spread on the forum. Drivers who were in closest connection to the inventors started to use after them, and by ZCT20, even the anti-Orion Looping Warriors was aware of the 'trick'. This explains my small decline in autumn 2002 (that time I also had only 2 occasions to play Stunts at the workplace of my father).
CTG used automatic transmission for long, he started to use manual only in 2003. He also improved his skills during the first years, by the end of 2003, he meant a real threat to me. Fortunately when both of us were on top, I still felt that I am the better (and the head to head numbers also tell this story, 8-7 to me counting only the real matches of 2004-05, a bit bigger gap if we count the final battles of 2003 - I think we should).
Most of the drivers, especially Alan Rotoi, Bonzai Joe and Alain operated with listfillers, so head to head numbers are overstating to me in my favour (I only had 2 listfiller races: ZCT Plus 1 and ZCT47).
I have only a few battles against the newer drivers, and the head to head numbers are overstating against me this time, because I abandoned ZCT47 and most of the drivers beat me, and I had two really terrible races on ZCT 55-56 (I was maybe a bit out of practice after the Laura break, and I was only playing on my roommate's CPU).
I can only assess the skills of newest drivers related to the other drivers who remained active and raced seriously (like CTG).
There are some very suspicious drivers who are probably ghosts, products of the Hendaye Ghost Factory and/or the Buenos Aires Ghost Factory. (Drivers who are less critic and believe everything in order to perpetuate the peace believe that only Tsino was a ghost from the top drivers.)

Taking all of these into consideration, I have to tell the following (I am modifying the quick list I created the last time):

1 Alan Rotoi. King of the Indy car and IRC driving, also a very very strong IMSA pipsqueak. Strong as a slow car pipsqueak and also not a bad no RH pipsqueak. I guess when he raced seriously, I had only a very few victories against him (ZCT23 leaps into my mind for example).
Indy 10 IRC 10 IMSA 9.5 Slow 9 NoRH 9

2 Bonzai Joe. One of the best noRH pipsqueaks, and thus creates RH replays very fast (proven on WSM). He is the best slow car pipsqueak along with Argammon, and also very strong with Indy. For me, he appeared to be vulnerable in IRC racing (I beat him sometimes) and a bit with IMSA cars. Very hard to decide if he or Rotoi was the best driver ever. He should have lead over me head to head by a big margin, but sent a lot of listfillers.
Indy 10 IRC 8.5 IMSA 9 Slow 10 NoRH 10

(small gap)

3 Argammon. A bit like Bonzai Joe, excellent slow car and no RH racing, but weaker with the Indy. He never finished a full season, when he raced, he almost always sent his best (like me). The 5-12 head to head numbers are seem to be more or less realistic.
Indy 8 IRC dunno/can't remember IMSA 8 Slow 10 NoRH 10

(very small gap)

4 Gutix. His skills were like a bit like Rotoi's, but not as outstanding as his. Unlike the top3, on my day, I could beat him. Never seen among the top NoRH drivers. Anyway, he is still a legend, and one of the best drivers ever.
Indy 9 IRC n/a IMSA 9.5 Slow 9 NoRH

5 Alain 'il professore'. He has very much strange things done in stunts life, which is maybe a consequence of his stardom, but we have to admit the greatness of the Frenchman. He is a replay handling master, weak without replay handling. More or less equally strong with all cars in my opinion. Like Gutix, he was also beatable for me on my day.
Indy 9.5 IRC 8.5 IMSA 9 Slow 9.5 NoRH 5.5

(gap)

6 Akoss Poo. I always felt that I miss that small plus something to be a real champion like the top5... The top5 is rises above the others (whose list starts with me IMO) that they were the big trick inventors, and not us. And I always sent quite decent replays, but often didn't have the patience to max out my replay from 97% to 100%. Somebody (can't remember who) said that I am an Indy specialist. Maybe. Out of my 17 victories, I think more than half of it was with the Indy. I also had very good results with the IMSA, IRC and noRH, but I often had problems with slow cars, and that's why I felt that ZakStunts reflects a worse image of my skills than real (and that's why I don't agree at all with Krys who put some pipsqueaks in front of me in his list who are clearly weaker than me). I had better results in other competitions.
Indy 9 IRC 8.5 IMSA 8.5 Slow 7 NoRH 8.5

7 CTG. My main rival and my closest rival, too, we had many great battles, including some 0.05 battles, too. Better with the slow cars I think, but not with the others in my opinion. Never beat me at IRC, and on WSMs, I was the better noRH driver, too. Not counting his auto trm era, his computer problems, my abandoned races, so only when both of us were on top, I lead the head to head battle (8-7 only including 2004-05, a bit bigger gap including the end of 2003) only counting ZakStunts (slow car) competition.
Indy 8 IRC 8 IMSA 8.5 Slow 8 NoRH 7.5

8 pArAnO. One of my favourite opponents in IRC. The IRC results are not available now, but I guess he had a little bit better head to head results against me. He also sent very good noRH times. Nobody mentioned him among the top drivers, because you (all) focus on ZakStunts. The fact that he never even dared to try ZakStunts also compels me to push him back to 8th.
Indy - IRC 8.5 IMSA - Slow - NoRH 9.5

About the others (who are weaker drivers or ghosts or suspicious drivers as for being ghost):

Roy Wiegerick: he was the king until we didn't invent advanced RH driving, and he didn't leave because of woman affairs. The two things happened almost together, so we will never be able to say the truth for 100%. But ZCT 14-41 results comparison makes us think that we were better drivers than him. Despite this, he is a great champion and an unforgettable icon of ZakStunts. Dark Chaser's level I think. CAP and Nailwood, the best drivers from the early ages, is around his level.

Zak McKracken: Good with slow cars, but I would be able to count on one of my hands how many times he beat me. On WSMs, he proved that he is a much better noRH pipsqueak, moreover, when BJ and me were drunken, he appeared to be the king there. Around Mark L. Rivers' level I think.

Dottore: I lead him 3-1 in ZakStunts, I also bet him in USC many times. CTG said why he is better than me, I said why I am better than CTG, that means it is no question that although Dottore is a great driver and in/close to the top10, he is not better than me. Around Chulk's level I guess.

Dark Chaser: I guess he beat me only on ZCT 56, in other cases, I won clearly. Krys put me close to him, but I clearly can't understand why.

Chulk: He is a decent driver. Despite ZakStunts is a slow car competition, and I had a terrible 2005 autumn, I lead our short ZSC head to head battle 3-2, and taking his latter results against the other drivers into account, I hold on to my opinion that I am the better driver. He would be one behind pArAnO on my list I guess.

Ayrton: If he exists, I must put him ahead of me, he leads our comparison battle 4-1 (although I gave up ZCT47 and I had terrible races in 2005 autumn). But I think he was never on the level of the top3. I could not imagine Akoss Poo beating Rotoi, Argammon and Bonzai Joe by 3 seconds, which happened to Ayrton on ZCT53, in the year when he was champion.

Mark L. Rivers: We never raced together, but the results against other drivers and CTG's reasoning (why he is better than him) shows that he is outside top10. Behind Chulk on my list, I guess.

Renato Biker: I think he is an Alain ghost, and he is on his level, too, considerating his skills.

So that's all I wanted to say. Maybe it sounded a bit egoist, but this time I had to reason against my underestimation from Krys. If he had overestimated me, I would have written a modest-like post maybe, trying to prove that I am not a top driver.

I am waiting for opinions, especially Arg's and BJ's opinions, who are the oldest top drivers on this forum who are still here, and I also trust on their opinions in questions like this the most.

One more thing, off topic: This was ONE post, which is maybe of more characters than CTG's 100 other posts. So watch his magic forum stats very carefully.

[Krys TOFF]

5 Alain 'il professore'. (...) NoRH 5.5

noRH skill of Alain is still over-estimated with this note IMO. Remember live races at the Stunts chat, even in 2003 when he was at his best : he was always the slowest, just better than Leo's level I even may say. I think his noRH skill is not better than 2 or 3 (10 beeing the max). But with lots of RH, he was able to reach the top.

[CTG]

Akoss Poo forgot something: maybe our matches show a Poo victory but follow them carefully in time and you will see that I improved over him in RH racing at the end (I was already better RH driver than him when he retired - but he was better between 1997-2004 and he's still a better noRH driver).

[BonzaiJoe]

I can't prove anything about Ayrton, Dottore, AbuRaf70 or whoever else some people think are ghosts, but Renato Biker is NOT a ghost. First of all, he is a better noRH driver than Alain, which the results from 2006 shows. Second of all, he is on a whole other level than Alain in noRH racing. I know this because, during one of my numerous MSN chats with him (in which he had pictures of himself, and didn't resemble Alain in the least, and you all know Alain has a very distinct style), he sent me his whole copy of Stunts, with all his tracks and high score tables. These were not Alain-tracks, and the times were much better than Alain could dream of, but not better than reasonably strong noRH pipsqueaks could dream of.
Whether they cooperated in illegal ways in the Orion team, I can of course not know for sure. However, there is nothing that indicates it, and so they are innocent until proven guilty.

[CTG]

Only one question: who said now that Renato is not existing? I also talked to him and I also know he's a real person.

[CTG]

About car's ranklist, here are the medal tables of each cars in ZakStunts. Sorry for the mess, I'll put them in a table. Some of these rankings are quite irrealistic as it also contains the stats of 2007 (GTO victory for me, LOL, I really hate that car and I still can't really handle it). But more or less it shows each pipsqueak's strong/weak cars.

Lamborghini LM002

CTG   1   1   1
Argammon   1   1   0
Bonzai Joe   1   0   1
Fdzierva   1   0   0
Roy Wiegerinck   1   0   0
Ayrton   1   0   0
Renato Biker   1   0   0
Alain   0   2   0
Chulk   0   1   1
Ben Snel   0   1   0
Mark L. Rivers   0   1   0
Zak McKracken   0   0   2
Akoss Poo   0   0   1
Mingva   0   0   1

Lancia Delta Integrale

Ayrton   2   0   0
Roy Wiegerinck   2   0   0
Bonzai Joe   1   2   0
Renato Biker   1   0   1
Gutix   1   0   0
CTG   0   1   1
Alain   0   1   1
Akoss Poo   0   1   1
Alan Rotoi   0   1   1
Bismarck   0   1   0
Dottore   0   0   1
Ben Snel   0   0   1

Audi Quattro

Argammon   2   0   1
CTG   2   0   0
Roy Wiegerinck   1   1   0
Gutix   1   0   1
Bonzai Joe   1   0   0
Ayrton   0   1   1
Sylvain Chabert   0   1   0
Alain   0   1   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   0
Chulk   0   1   0
Dottore   0   1   0
Pershing II   0   0   1
Alan Rotoi   0   0   1
Renato Biker   0   0   1
Mark L. Rivers   0   0   1

Porsche Carrera

CTG   1   1   1
Gutix   1   1   0
Bonzai Joe   1   0   2
Ayrton   1   0   1
Mark L. Rivers   1   0   0
Alan Rotoi   1   0   0
Bismarck   1   0   0
Alain   0   2   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   1
Renato Biker   0   1   0
Argammon   0   1   0
Zak McKracken   0   0   1
Mingva   0   0   1

Acura NSX

CTG   2   1   1
Bonzai Joe   2   0   2
Argammon   1   1   0
Fdzierva   1   0   0
Alan Rotoi   1   0   0
Ayrton   0   2   0
Zak McKracken   0   1   0
Alain   0   1   0
Chulk   0   1   0
Akoss Poo   0   0   2
Ben Snel   0   0   1
Mark L. Rivers   0   0   1

Chevrolet Corvette

Gutix   2   0   0
Argammon   2   0   0
Chulk   1   0   0
Alain   1   0   0
CTG   0   1   2
Ayrton   0   1   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   0
Roy Wiegerinck   0   1   0
Bonzai Joe   0   0   1
Krys Toff   0   0   1
Bismarck   0   0   1

Lamborghini Countach

Bonzai Joe   2   1   1
Argammon   1   1   1
Roy Wiegerinck   1   0   0
Ayrton   1   0   0
Renato Biker   1   0   0
Zak McKracken   0   2   1
Alan Rotoi   0   2   0
Akoss Poo   0   0   3
Ben Snel   0   0   1

Ferrari GTO

Alain   2   0   1
Roy Wiegerinck   2   0   0
Bonzai Joe   1   3   0
CTG   1   0   1
Alan Rotoi   1   0   0
Argammon   0   2   0
Gutix   0   1   1
Zak McKracken   0   1   0
Krys Toff   0   0   1
Renato Biker   0   0   1
Akoss Poo   0   0   1
Pershing II   0   0   1
Ben Snel   0   0   1

Jaguar XJR IMSA

Roy Wiegerinck   2   0   0
CTG   2   0   0
Alan Rotoi   1   0   0
Gutix   1   0   0
Ayrton   1   0   0
Bonzai Joe   0   3   1
Ben Snel   0   2   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   1
Renato Biker   0   1   0
Mark L. Rivers   0   1   0
Alain   0   0   4
Duplode   0   0   1

Porsche 962 IMSA

Gutix   1   1   0
Ayrton   1   0   1
Alain   1   0   1
Alan Rotoi   1   0   1
Renato Biker   1   0   0
Roy Wiegerinck   1   0   0
Bonzai Joe   0   2   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   1
Zak McKracken   0   1   1
CTG   0   1   0
Paulo Ribeiro   0   0   1

Melange XGT-88

Alain   3   0   0
Ayrton   1   0   0
Akoss Poo   0   1   1
Gutix   0   1   0
Dark Chaser   0   1   0
CTG   0   1   0
XDude_NL   0   0   1
Vamologocomisso   0   0   1
Argammon   0   0   1

Porsche March Indy

Ayrton   2   1   1
Gutix   2   0   1
Alain   1   2   2
Bonzai Joe   1   2   1
Akoss Poo   1   2   0
Mingva   1   0   1
Roy Wiegerinck   1   0   0
Usrin   1   0   0
Renato Biker   1   0   0
Alan Rotoi   0   2   0
Mark L. Rivers   0   1   0
Duplode   0   1   0
XDude_NL   0   0   1
Argammon   0   0   1
CTG   0   0   1
Zak McKracken   0   0   1
Chulk   0   0   1

Skoda Felicia

Mingva   1   0   0
Alan Rotoi   0   1   0
Alain   0   0   1

[CTG]

Another thing: talking about Nailwood, CAP, Inavoeg, etc. - why do we think they wouldn't be able to learn the new tricks and more expert driving methods if they stay with us? In their era they were the best. Who knows, maybe DeathMan (just an example) after racing between 2001 and 2007 -  with the same activity as Bonzai Joe or Alain did - would be the best RH driver on Earth. It's something like we can't know that Lauda or Hakkinen is the better F1 driver...

I respect Nailwood's results and I think he would be a great driver with knowing all the new Stunts tricks. I didn't put him on my list because I never saw him racing but still he's one of the biggest Stunts pipsqueaks ever.